Besides the competition itself, the main purpose behind the cross country regular season is to build towards peaking for the championship season, which begins with the conference championships.

Conference meets hold different meaning to different teams, even different conferences. The Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference championship on Saturday (2 p.m., University of Maine-Augusta) is essentially a dress rehearsal for next week's Eastern A regionals because the conference and the region consist of the same teams. 

"You've got the KVAC's, the regionals and the states. The KVAC is the lesser of the three meets, just because if you're going to make it to states, you've got to have a good regional meet," Mt. Blue coach Kelley Cullenberg said. "We get psyched for KVACs. I love the course; it has everything you need on a cross country course, in my opinion. But, it's not an end all in terms of if you do great you know you're going to do great the rest of the season or if you do horrible you know you're going to do horrible the rest of the season."

Cullenberg pointed at that the Mt. Blue boys finished fifth at the KVACs, then bounced back with a strong third-place finish at Eastern A regionals. 

"We try to do things a little differently in each meet. I think you have to because the courses are so different," she said. "This year in particular for us on the boys' side, we're definitely not gearing towards KVACs only because of some injuries that we're trying to work through."

The high point of the KVACs could be the latest round in a year-long duel between Mt. Blue's Kelton Cullenberg, the coach's son, and Brunswick's Will Geoghegan, the defending conference champion. Cullenberg, who raced for much of last year while recovering from emergency surgery to have his appendix removed, has been healthy all this year and is the second-ranked runner in the state behind Geoghegan.

"For his first year running cross country healthy, Kelton's been able to really train well all season long," Kelley Cullenberg said. "He's been able to get in some real strong speed work and some good miles and he's feeling really good."

Melody Lam will lead the Cougar girls into the conference meet. Lam, a senior, won last year's KVACs by nearly 25 seconds

"She's running faster than she did last year at this point of the season," Cullenberg said. "Certainly, she's feeling good. She's healthy right now and we just have to hope that it continues."

Things seem to be coming together for the Cougars as a team at the right time, Cullenberg said. Last week, they edged Mt. Ararat by three seconds in one of the closest Mt. Blue Relays ever.

"It's been an interesting season. We've had really freaky things happen, and finally going into the championship meets, we feel like we might be able to see our top five running the way we thought they were going to be able to run," she said. "We're excited to see what might happen when we get the right combination together." 

The Lewiston boys and Brewer girls are the defending champions. The Blue Devils should battle Brunswick, Hampden Academy, Cony and Mt. Blue for the boys' team title. Cony's Luke Fontaine, Morse's Jason Kaake, Darik Frye of Hampden and Edward Little's Sadam Abdi are among the other contenders.

Mt. Blue, Mt. Ararat and Brewer are expected to compete for the girls' crown, with Lam expected to battle Kate Spies of Mt. Ararat and Katie McMahon of Brunswick for individual honors. 

St. Dom's, Boothbay favored in MVC

The Mountain Valley Conference gets first dibs on the UMA course Saturday with a 10 a.m. start time.

"It is the fairest course in the state, as far as I'm concerned," Lisbon coach Hank Fuller said. "It is a mixture of hills and trails and flats. The first half-mile and the last half-mile people get to watch, so it's reasonably spectator friendly.

The Boothbay boys and Lisbon girls will be defending their titles. 

"Boothbay is probably the favorite (among the boys), then Monmouth, then I guess probably us," Fuller said. 

Madison's Matthew McClintock, Boothbay's Chase Brown and Patrick McInnis of Monmouth rank as the individual favorites. Alex Branson, who leads Fuller's Greyhounds, and Telstar's Ben Lewis are among the top local competitors. 

Newcomer St. Dom's is the heavy favorite for the girls' title. Monmouth, Madison and Lisbon hope to challenge the Saints. The list of individual contenders includes the Saints' Alyse Carney, Sikwani Dana of Carrabec, Laura MacDonald of Hall-Dale, Monmouth's Abby Szotkowski and Angie Bulgin and Meagan Thomas of Lisbon.

Poland's Lobley second in WMC

The Western Maine Conference held its conference meet one week ago in Falmouth with Cape Elizabeth and Greely winning the girls' and boys' titles, respectively. The Poland girls, led by second-place finisher Kendra Lobley, took third place overall, behind Cape and York. Caroline Blake (17th), Natasha Piirainen (24th), Miranda Gile (33rd) and Maggie Norton (45th) also scored for the Knights. Emily Atwood of Cape won individual honors.

Among the boys, Cape, York, Falmouth and Fryeburg rounded out the top five, with Gray-New Gloucester finishing 10th and Poland 12th. York's Alex Moser won the individual title with a new course record (16:08). Ethan Ray (44th) of Gray-New Gloucester was the top local runner.